in the year that will be
by sir-hugalot
Summary: Snapshots of the babyhood of Sara Cohen-Myers-Yao, in which absolutely nothing bad happens despite the zombie apocalypse.


Paula hadn't thought she would ever be able to do more than brush Sara with the back of her hand, just once, before she died. She had given up even that hope as she repeated the _shema_ , and yet here she was - at 2am, gasping at the rush of cold air as she slipped out of bed, Maxine making a sleepy grumbling sound and pulling the duvet towards her as she rolled over.

It would be ridiculous to say that Paula _enjoyed_ getting up at 2am to attempt to calm down a red-faced, shrieking baby who seemed to be 90% lung (or so she thought in the wee hours - Sara put in far less effort during the day, she suspected), but Paula…kind of did. Even though she could feel the chill of the floor through her socks and her jumper wasn't enough to stop her shivering, she felt a sense of awe as she picked the baby - _her_ baby, her and Maxine's and Sam's - up and bounced her gently, shushing and murmuring nonsense. Softly, so as not to wake Maxine, she sang a song from her childhood and watched as the miracle in her arms stopped squirming, breathing slower and finally falling back asleep. _Next year, you will see how good it will be. Next year._

* * *

 _"Mum, why was I named Sara?"_

 _"Sara Janine Cohen-Myers-Yao, you were named after the two bravest women I ever knew-"_

 _"Maxie! What are you telling her?"_

* * *

"Sara, darling, please, the peas go in your mouth, not in Ima's hair," Paula said, trying to get her hair out of her face without spreading the mushy peas even further. "You've got to eat your peas to grow up big and strong! Like Auntie Janine - don't you want to be like her?"

"Dr Cohen, I am _not_ Sara's aunt-"

"Janine, come on, we're all family in the zombie apocalypse."

"I don't see you talking about Auntie Amelia," Janine pointed out, turning away with the box she had been carrying towards the kitchen when she had overheard.

"You've got to earn it, and Amelia...hasn't. If Sara grows up to be half as capable as you, I would be so proud of her."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Dr Cohen."

"Janine, come on, at least call me by my first name. I have peas in my hair."

"I refuse to be Auntie Janine. If I _must_ , it should be Aunt Janine."

Sara shrieked and spread more peas across the table as Janine turned away, but Paula knew she had seen the expression on Paula's face: Paula had won.

"For your Aunt Janine, Sara, baby. One more mouthful of peas."

* * *

 _"Mum, I'm scared, there are monsters in the cupboard-"_

 _"Sara Sara Cohen-Myers-Yao, you were named after the bravest woman I ever knew, twice because she was just that brave. And if Sara Smith can defeat cupboard monsters, you can too, because you're twice as brave as she is."_

* * *

"Sam! Sam, get over here, Sara said her first word!"

There was no one but Amelia to see Sam trip right over the bench he was trying to get up from in his hurry to follow Maxine's voice, and Amelia didn't count anyway, so Sam didn't even feel embarrassed - this was his _first child_ saying her _first words_! If that didn't deserve making a bit of a fool of yourself and abandoning a slice of marmite toast, he didn't know what did.

"What did she say?" he asked, sitting on the sofa next to Maxine. "Was it 'dad'?"

"It was 'ma', but we don't know who she meant, me or Paula."

"It was me! Ima, ma, it makes sense - you're Mum."

"Pff, that means nothing, she's not going to be able to get that final 'm', didn't you do any pediatrics?"

Sam reached over to take Sara as Maxine made a particularly wild gesture to illustrate her point, opening his mouth to say hello just as Sara decided to wave her hand in his face. Her fist landed in his mouth and she decided to grab onto his bottom teeth, her fingers pressing onto his gums.

"Sara," he attempted to say, and she giggled, apparently taken with the hilarity of how her fingers moved when he spoke. He didn't really have the heart to take them out and resigned himself to his fate, zoning back into the discussion/argument happening next to him, which despite several disparaging remarks about various NHS pediatrics departments, had no heat at all.

"What if it's both?" he said, trying to sound dignified with a tiny fist in his mouth. "She's got two mums, and it's not like she can tell us what she meant."

Maxine slowly reached over and removed Sara's hand, and the look on her face struck Sam: it was soft and amused and full of love, for him _and_ Sara, and how often did people look like that at the end of the world?

As Sara burbled on his lap in the rec room, there were no zombies. There was no apocalypse, because this was how life was meant to be.

* * *

 _"Sara the Major Cohen-Myers-Yao, you were named after the two bravest women I ever kn-"_

 _"Oh my god, Mum, stop!"_

* * *

"Miss Cohen-Myers-Yao, your parents have asked me to babysit, so I think you are old enough to learn the basics of electrical repairs and building maintenance. Not doing it yourself, of course, and no electricity involved, but the basic principles. When you achieve those, you will be much more accomplished than many people I've met since my farm was converted into a township, and you still can't reliably get places without falling over."

"Annie!" Sara said happily. Janine had no idea how her name had become Annie, but nothing would dissuade her - and at least it wasn't 'auntie'. (Sometimes, before- before everything, there were small children who called her 'auntie'. She had put a stop to that as soon as she caught wind, but now she didn't even know if they were alive.)

"Now, this Lego is not ideal for teaching you about the difference between load-bearing walls and non-load-bearing walls, but it will have to do. We all have to make sacrifices in the apocalypse, after all, and I am sure this is not the first nor the last in your life." Janine was not sure Sara was paying adequate attention to her explanations (which, in Janine's defence, were delivered slowly, clearly and with plenty of terminology breakdowns). Sara did not even seem overly interested in building a structure, just in placing different Lego bricks onto the base plate between them.

She decided to cut her some slack. Even when naptime and snacks were factored in, they had plenty of time.

"See how if we removed this wall by taking out these bricks, the building is still structurally sound? Meaning that it doesn't fall over. But if we remove this wall here-"

"CRASH!"

"Yes, crash. I'm glad you're attentive."

(Perhaps, from the way Sara then proceeded to destroy the building that Janine had not yet finished using as an instructive model, she had said 'crash' to indicate that she wanted to giggle as it wobbled and finally collapsed, but Janine held out hope.)

"As we've learnt, Miss Cohen-Myers-Yao, it is of utmost important that you repair any damage to load-bearing walls immediately, especially if that damage was sustained in an attack involving projectiles such as rocket launchers. This could put the whole building at risk if you do not make adequate repairs, so if you'll-"

"What," Sara said, waving a figurine from the Lego box and interrupting. Janine had had far worse and far ruder interruptions by grown adults, so she tried not to let any annoyance show as she looked at what was clutched in the small fist in front of her.

"That is a cow."

"Moo!"

"Yes, cows do say moo. That's a Friesian, which is a breed of dairy cattle, the most common dairy breed in the UK."

"What," Sara said again, this time holding out her other hand with another toy.

"That is a sheep. It does not appear to be detailed enough to indicate a specific breed, but the face indicates that is may be a Suffolk, since that is by far the most common black-faced breed."

"Moo."

"No, sheep do not say moo. Sheep say baa."

"Moo."

"No, no, sheep say baa. Can you say baa?"

Her focus was torn from the baby in her care (who had looked like she was gearing up to say 'moo' again, anyway) by a high-pitched giggle from the doorway.

"Mr Yao, are you not directing Runner Five on a mission right now?"

"No - well, yes, but Maxie's taking over for a few minutes so I can go to the loo and get a cuppa. What I wouldn't give for a recorder so I could hear you say 'baa' again. That was magical. No one's going to believe me, you know."

"Mr Yao, your daughter thinks that sheep say moo. I think that is a far more important issue than whether or not people will believe I am trying to correct her."

"You having fun with Aunt Janine, baby girl? You playing with Lego?" Sam moved to pick Sara up, but Janine pursed her lips and looked towards the door.

"The mission, Mr Yao?"

"Alright, yes, I'm going. Your Aunt Janine is scary," he said as an aside to his daughter, kissing her before putting Sara back but on the wrong side of the base plate, so she was next to Janine instead of across from her. "I better get back to work. I'll see you later, ok? Bye Janine!"

"Daddy!" Sara's face fell when he left, and Janine resigned herself to the knowledge that it would be far, far harder to teach her the basics of circuitry now that she was distracted by the absence of her father.

"The most important thing you have to remember when building circuits, Miss Cohen-Myers-Yao, is that no matter where it occurs, if there is a break in the circuit, electricity does not flow through any of it…"

* * *

 _"_ _Mum?"_

 _"Yes, Sara?"_

 _"I don't have a middle name, do I."_

 _"...Did Ima tell you?"_

 _"Mum, every single time you use my full name, the middle name is different."_

 _"Your surname is so long to start with-"_

 _"So I'm not named after the two bravest women you ever knew?"_

 _"Well, you are certainly named after the bravest woman I ever knew. Me and Ima both. She was...she was incredible. Got on like a house on fire with Janine. I wish you'd met her. She was a mother before the apocalypse, so I'm sure she would have loved you."_

 _"So I live up to it? The name?"_

 _"Of course you do. Sara Smith would be so proud."_


End file.
